Principal Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife & Heritage, Madam Silvia Museiya at the launch ceremony.
ACC to develop models for a large-scale landscape conservation and sustainable development program. The partnership project named “Unganisha” which in Swahili means to bring together, will work with cross-sectoral agencies to set up the strategies, structures, and policies for large-scale transboundary conservation in the Kenya/Tanzania borderland area with the goal of restoring ecosystem health, functionality, and connectivity coupled with sustainable development that improves local livelihoods.
Lucy Waruingi, ACC, Executive Director, giving remarks at program launch on ACC’s commitment to the project.
Program partners: (Left to right): Rolf-Dieter Sprung, SOKNOT Coordinator, WWF-Germany, Lucy Waruingi, Executive Director of ACC and Martin Mulama, Landscape Coordinator for WWF-Kenya
The Southern Kenya-Northern Tanzania (SOKNOT) borderlands region supports some of the richest wildlife populations on earth through a network of national parks and reserves, as well as the pastoral lands that connect them. Despite their importance to conservation, most national parks are too small and scattered to sustain large, wide-ranging herbivores and carnivores. Over the last 30 years, Kenya’s parks and reserves have lost half of their wildlife populations, about the same as countrywide losses. The same trend is also seen in parks across eastern and southern Africa.
“Conserving the richest pastoral and wildlife lands in Africa at the scale of the borderlands can raise large payments for ecosystem services ranging from carbon and biodiversity markets to climate buffering, food security, renewal energy, water harvesting, erosion and flood control, tourism, research, cultural heritage and existence values.”
The project focus area — SOKNOT-UNGANISHA landscape
ACC, a partner in this project will be building on its pilot project, the Borderlands Conservation Initiative (BCI) to develop models for a large scale landscape conservation and sustainable development program. The project named “Unganisha” which in Swahili means to bring together, will work with cross-sectoral agencies to set up the strategies, structures and policies for large scale transboundary conservation in the Kenya/Tanzania borderland area with the goal of restoring ecosystem health, functionality and connectivity coupled with sustainable development that improves local livelihoods.
The program supported by WWF-Germany and WWF-Kenya was launched by the Principal Secretary, Tourism, Wildlife and Heritage Madam Silvia Museiya, the Principal Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife & Heritage in the presence of Mr. Guido Reuter, Head of Civil Society Cooperation at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany (BMZ).
